Two highly-anticipated comedy series are hitting streaming platforms this week, the excruciatingly relatable "Beef" on Netflix and the musical prequel series, "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" on Paramount+. Meanwhile, there are films like "The Drop" and "Mayhem" available to stream that might help viewers get ready for a series like "Beef." Both flicks are exclusive to their prospective streaming platforms, so hopefully you've got Hulu and Shudder in addition to Netflix. There's also the Netflix series "Julie and the Phantoms" and the oft-forgotten "Grease 2" on Paramount+ to serve as the perfect companion pieces to "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies." Last-up, there's also the Prime Video series "Paper Girls" which manages to capture the girl-power energy of the new prequel series while boasting a stand-out performance by one of the stars of "Beef."
Beef Is About To Become Your Latest TV Obsession
Where to Watch "Beef": NetflixWhen "Beef" Releases: April 6, 2023
The magic of the series lies with Yeun and Wong, who effortlessly capture the type of self-destructive, chaotically messy characters you can't help but love, warts and all. It captures the same fractured, heartfelt, and unhinged comedy most A24 vehicles are known for. At its heart, "Beef" is about exploring the themes of rage, grief, betrayal, and undirected sorrow, while also examining how all of our own personal hangups directly impact how we relate to one another. It's certainly not a "feel good" comedy like "Ted Lasso," but for people who benefit from tough love or are the type of folks who use humor to get through terrible moments, "Beef" is a show that will speak directly to your twisted soul.
Grease: Rise Of The Pink Ladies Has Too Much Heart To Hate
Where to Watch "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies": Paramount+When "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" Releases: April 6, 2023
I'll be the first to admit I was really apprehensive when "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" was first announced. As one of the foremost advocates for the cult cinema treasure known as "Grease 2," I've lost count of how many "Grease" or "Grease 2" articles/podcasts/think pieces I've put out over the years. When the trailers first arrived, boasting a beautifully diverse cast that was definitely not a part of the first two films, I was still worried. If this is a prequel series about the formation of the Pink Ladies, whose canonical origins would now mark that the social club was founded on intersectionality ... it implies something seriously sinister happened if the Pink Ladies of Rydell High seen in the feature films wound up exclusively white.
Fortunately, "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" is not a bit of revisionist history, and manages to tackle the uncomfortable realities of the 1950s while boasting some seriously killer musical numbers that are sure to delight anyone still recovering from years of watching "Glee." The series refreshingly pulls a lot of the feminist subtext of the films to the forefront, but has a lot on its plate trying to juggle themes of racism, sexism, xenophobia, gender nonconformity, and the cruel politics of high school, often to uneven results. But despite the obvious missteps, "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" has so much heart, you can't help but root for its success. Did anyone ask for this? No, not really, but I'm certainly not upset by its existence.
The Drop Is A Masterclass In Cringe Comedy
The Movie: "The Drop"Where You Can Stream It: Hulu
Sarah Adina Smith is known for her surreal films like "The Midnight Swim," "Buster's Mal Heart," and "Birds of Paradise," but her sensibilities are well suited in the darkly comedic Hulu feature, "The Drop." Starring Anna Konkle ("Pen15"), Jermaine Fowler ("Superior Donuts"), and Jillian Bell ("Brittany Runs a Marathon"), the film takes a downright horrific premise and finds a way to make it skin-crawling and hilarious. Konkle and Fowler play a young couple named Lex and Mani who are attending a destination wedding at a tropical resort when the unthinkable happens — Lex drops their friend's baby. Don't worry, the kid is fine, but the adults from this moment forward are very much not fine.
The film was produced by Mark and Jay Duplass, so you expect the same kind of indie weirdo vibes found in films like "Creep," "Jeff, Who Lives at Home," or "Baghead." While the film was written by Smith and co-writer Joshua Leonard, "The Drop" takes a mumblecore approach by having the actors largely improv their own dialogue. The result is an uncomfortably natural comedy that feels less like watching "a comedy movie" and instead captures the sensation of being in a public place and witnessing strangers have total meltdowns. If a show like "Beef" works for you, "The Drop" will feel right at home.
Julie And The Phantoms Sing A Sweet, Spooky Song
The Series: "Julie and the Phantoms"Where You Can Stream It: Netflix
Tragically canceled after only one season, the teen musical dramedy series "Julie and the Phantoms" is the perfect appetizer for a show like "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies." The series follows a musician named Julie Molina (Madison Reyes) who is having a hard time creating new music after her mother passes away. One day, Julie listens to an old CD and summons the ghosts of a band from 1995. Naturally, Julie becomes the band's lead singer, and if you guessed that she'd develop feelings for one of her new ghostly bandmates, you're absolutely right. "Julie and the Phantoms" is somewhat of a paint-by-numbers teen musical series, but the music is legitimately fantastic (they won an Emmy!) and all of the characters are so charming, it's hard not to immediately get on board with the ridiculous premise.
The series was executive produced by musical mogul Kenny Ortega, the choreographer turned director behind beloved projects like "Newsies," "Hocus Pocus," "Descendants," and the "High School Musical" trilogy. The series has a very vocal and dedicated fanbase, so if you watch the show and fall in love with it like so many others and need a place to vent about its untimely cancellation, don't worry. You're in good company. Here's hoping "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" doesn't suffer a similar fate.
Steven Yeun And Samara Weaving Tear It Up In Mayhem
The Movie: "Mayhem"Where You Can Stream It: Shudder
Steven Yeun's breakthrough role came when he was cast as Glenn Rhee on "The Walking Dead," but if you ask me, it was in 2017 when he appeared in both Bong Joon-ho's "Okja" and Joe Lynch's "Mayhem" that he truly came into his own. The latter, especially, was a fantastic showcase of the balls-to-the-wall commitment Yeun has when entering the genre sphere, and his chemistry with co-star Samara Weaving is off-the-charts fantastic. "Mayhem" is about a fictional pandemic known as ID-7 aka "Red Eye," that turns people into impulse monsters.
While the infected aren't zombies by any means, the disease attacks the neural pathways and absolutely obliterates any sense of inhibition or a moral compass. People are operating on their most intrusive thoughts, throwing the world into, well, mayhem. While "Beef" is certainly nowhere near the high-octane thrill ride as "Mayhem," there's a level of commitment in Yeun's performance that has evolved from his role in this flick. The film is a twisted, social satire set in a cutthroat law office, but with plenty of dark humor to keep things from ever feeling too heavy. If you ask me, "Mayhem" is the perfect appetizer for "Beef."
Grease 2 Is The Word
The Movie: "Grease 2"Where You Can Stream It: Paramount+
Look, no one needs me to tell them to watch "Grease" because it's one of the most recognizable IPs in history, but "Grease 2" has been treated like the Cousin Oliver of the franchise for far too long when in reality, the controversial sequel has always been the Marcia Brady. The film is most well-known for giving Michelle Pfeiffer her first leading role, but the raunchy, feminist, dance-forward musical sequel has only gotten better with time. Is a song like "Reproduction" or "Do It For Our Country" as accessible as "Summer Nights" or "We Go Together"? Absolutely not, but "Grease 2" has better choreography, snappier humor, and might be too weird for your grandma to want to watch with you.
"Grease 2" focuses so much more on the Pink Ladies and their leader, Stephanie Zinoni (Pfeiffer), and rightfully portrays the T-Birds as a bunch of corny try-hards in leather jackets. This is a film about a woman taking control of her own place in the high school hierarchy, and bucking the so-called "rules" of young women's required allegiance to their boyfriends. In fact, I'd argue that without "Grease 2," a show like "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" wouldn't have been possible, because the film serves as a bridge between the squeaky clean original and much more progressive prequel series.
It also has Lorna Luft in the world's greatest pair of gold lamé pants and a song about paying sex workers. You love to see it.
Paper Girls Deserved Better
The Series: "Paper Girls"Where You Can Stream It: Prime Video
Another show canceled way too soon is "Paper Girls," based on the comic book series of the same name. The show was billed as "Stranger Things" for girls, which did a disservice to the genuinely phenomenal series. /Film's own Valerie Ettenhofer called the series "a singular, satisfying take on girlhood and time travel" in her review, and pointed out how it is a "rare comic book adaptation that both honors and improves upon the source material." The show follows four paper delivery girls on their post-Halloween routes, who get caught in the middle of two warring factions of time travelers. They end up thrown into the future, coming face-to-face with their older selves, which is a severe mind melt for a group of girls who haven't even really hit puberty.
"Paper Girls" fits a bit more in line as a recommendation with "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies," but features a fantastic supporting performance by "Beef" star Ali Wong as the adult version of one of the time-traveling tweens. Wong is an incredibly gifted stand-up comedian, as shown in her Netflix specials "Baby Cobra," "Hard Knock Wife," and "Don Wong," which made her a shoo-in for comedic projects like "Tuca & Bertie" and "Always Be My Maybe," but "Paper Girls" really lets Wong shine as a complex, emotional character, something well on display in "Beef."
The Tor Project, the organization behind the anonymous network and browser, is helping launch a privacy-focused browser that's made to connect to a VPN instead of a decentralized onion network. From a report: It's called the Mullvad browser, named after the Mullvad VPN company it's partnered with on the project, and it's available for Windows, Mac, or Linux. The Mullvad browser's main goal is to make it harder for advertisers and other companies to track you across the internet. It does this by working to reduce your browser's "fingerprint," a term that describes all the metadata that sites can collect to uniquely identify your device.
It’s normal to feel overtaxed by your job once in a while, but when that feeling becomes persistent no matter what you do to pull back or redirect your efforts, you may be experiencing burnout—and the problem probably lies with your employer.
According to a study by the University of California, Berkeley, Rutgers, and …
Despite only being out for a year, there are already some great Elden Ring mods out there. Talented modders are making FromSoftware's biggest game even bigger, and now you can even take a trip back in time to one of the developer's proto-Souls games, King's Field, by turning Elden Ring into an FPS game - no, I'm not joking.
Graham (RPS in peace) text me yesterday and, with little warning, launched into what were clearly pre-prepared paragraphs of complaints about games he'd tried playing in his free time at the weekend and not enjoyed. I shall draw a veil of discretion over the names of the actual games, but his chief complaint was that none of them had, actually, very robust design or tutorialising fit for purpose (i.e. teaching you how to play the game), especially for people who aren't able to give games their singular attention for hours at at time. I agree with him, although his attention is divided by, e.g., having a child in need of stimulation, and mine is divided by, e.g., being a child in need of stimulation.
It's probably turning my brain into cottage cheese, but I often do things at the same time as playing a game, like listening to music or a podcast. I understand that podcast games are sort of a genre now, but I've started doing it with regular games. Is this a me problem? Sure. Does it mean I want games to bring back that thing where NPC quest givers will just explain the quest again to you if you ask? 100% also yes.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the first batch of astronauts that will fly around the Moon as part of the agency's Artemis 2 mission. NASA's Artemis 2 is expected to take to the skies next year, and it will see the crew fly inside the Orion spacecraft in a lunar orbit before returning to Earth. The crew unveiled today includes astronauts who have flown to space before, and the space agency was joined by officials of the Canadian Space Agency as part of today's announcement. NASA Administrator Bil Nelson announced the crew to members of the press and other guests at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA Selects Fresh Crew of Astronauts For Maiden Spaceflight
As it announced the crew for the Artemis 2 mission, the space agency is already making progress with the rocket that will fly them to the Moon. After launching the SLS last year as part of a highly anticipated test flight, NASA has already assembled the rocket's core stage that will power the Artemis 2 mission. NASA teams joined the rocket's engine section to the four other sections of the center core in mid-March. Following this, teams will mate the rocket's massive RS-25 engines to the engine stage and then prepare to complete the vehicle by adding the two solid rocket boosters.
The four astronauts selected for flying the Artemis 2 mission are Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, and Gregory Wiseman. Koch will be a mission specialist, Glovter will be its pilot, Hansen, another specialist and Wiseman will command the crew for their maiden voyage around the Moon. Not all of the crew selected have spaceflight experience.
Koch has spent more than 328 days outside the Earth, Glover spent more than five months on the International Space Station (ISS) as part of SpaceX's Crew-1 mission and NASA's Expedition 64/65 and Weisman took the skies on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft in 2014. On the other hand, the Artemis 2 mission will mark Hansen - an astronaut of the Canadian Space Agency - fly outside Earth for the first time. Koch is the most experienced astronaut on the crew, with the Artemis 2 mission being her third spaceflight.
(Feb. 1, 2021) --- NASA astronaut Victor Glover is pictured during a spacewalk to complete battery upgrade work on the outside of the International Space Station with fellow NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins (out of frame). Image: NASA JSC
Addressing the crow as part of his selection speech, Glover stated:
Wow, what a day. And look at all of this. This is amazing, isn't it? I mean after all of that, I feel like Denzel Washington should be up here talking to you. But you just got us. I want to thank God this amazing opportunity. And I think I speak for all of us, I want to thank our families for the amazing support. It is your love and support that has made this journey possible. Please give them a round of applause. And to all of the folks who made this celebration possible, thank you for your hard work. They are the real ones in here sweating with all of us. But this is a big day, we have a lot to celebrate, and it's so much more than the four names that have been announced. We need to celebrate this moment in human history. Because Artemis 2 is more than a mission to the Moon and back. It's more than a mission that has to happen before we send people to the surface of the Moon.
It is the next step on the journey that gets humanity to Mars. Yeah you can clap for that. That's real. And this crew will never forget that. Now we have a lot of work to do before we get there. And we understand that. And when talking about that work you may often hear people say, human spaceflight is a marathon, not a sprint. But we have watched the people that worked so hard to make our mission possible, and I can tell you it is a series of sprints that's called a relay race. Human spaceflight is like a relay race, and that baton has been passed generation to generation and from crewmember to crewmember. From the Gemini, Mercury-Gemini, Apollo, Apollo-Soyuz, Skylab, Mir, the Shuttle, International Space Station, Commercial Crew, and now the Artemis missions. And we understand our role in that. And when we have the privilege of having that baton, we're gonna do our best to run a good race, to make you proud.
After Glover returned from the space station in 2021, he shared more details about the importance of the mission to Mars exploration with actor Tom Cruise, leaving him stunned by the experience of flying SpaceX's Crew Dragon to and from the space station and performing spacewalks.
Astronaut Hansen appreciated America's "deliberate choice" to form a global team for lunar exploration, expressing his and Canada's gratitude for the decision. He added that Canada is a crucial part of the international partnership to make space exploration possible, and this has led to his journey to the Moon.
Astronaut Koch stressed that her mission is an important part of the Artemis mission since the crew will be the first to test the spacecraft around the Moon before future missions attempt a landing. Astronauts will land on the Moon with SpaceX's Starship lunar lander. Commander Wiseman thanked all the participants, the politicians, NASA teams and others. He also made a special shoutout to astronaut Frank Rubio who is currently on the space station as part of a record-setting stay.
America's Department of Defense "is gearing up for a future conflict in space," reports the Wall Street Journal, "as China and Russia deploy missiles and lasers that can take out satellites and disrupt military and civilian communications."
The White House this month proposed a $30 billion annual budget for the U.S. Space Force, almost $4 billion more than last year and a bigger jump than for other services including the Air Force and the Navy.... A key aim of a stand-alone force was to plan, equip and defend U.S. interests in space for all of the services and focus attention on the emerging threats. For the first time, the spending request also includes plans for simulators and other equipment to train Guardians, as Space Force members are known, for potential battle....
Just as it is on Earth, China is the Pentagon's big worry in space. In unveiling a defense strategy late last year, the Biden administration cast China as the greatest danger to U.S. security. In space, the threats from China range from ground-launched missiles or lasers that could destroy or disable U.S. satellites, to jamming and other cyber interference and attacks in space, said Pentagon officials. China has invested heavily in its space program, with a crewed orbiting station, developing ground-based missiles and lasers as well as more surveillance capabilities. This is part of its broader military aims of denying adversaries access to space-based assets.
China is "testing on-orbit satellite systems which could be weaponized as they have already shown the capability to physically control and move other satellites," Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, told a congressional hearing this month. "There's nothing we can do in space that's of any value if the networks that process the information and data are vulnerable to attack," Gen. Saltzman said. A central part of the Space Force's next tranche of military contracts for rocket launches is protecting them from attacks by China and other adversaries. The hope is to make satellites tougher to approach by adversaries' equipment as well as less susceptible to lasers and jamming from space or the ground, said Space Force leaders.
The article also notes the US Defense Department "is moving away from a small number of school bus-size satellites to a planned constellation of hundreds of smaller ones.
"The larger number of targets makes any one satellite less crucial to the network but also requires changes in the capabilities of the satellites themselves, the rockets that put them into orbit and the communications systems they host."
Today a warning was published from the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle. "Experts say post-pandemic woes stemming from office workers staying home instead of commuting into the city could send San Francisco into a 'doom loop' that would gut its tax base, decimate fare-reliant regional transit systems like BART and trap it in an economic death spiral...."
Despite our housing crisis, it was years into the COVID pandemic before our leaders meaningfully questioned the logic of reserving some of the most prized real estate on Earth for fickle suburbanites and their cars. Downtown, after all, was San Francisco's golden goose. Companies in downtown offices accounted for 70% of San Francisco's pre-pandemic jobs and generated nearly 80% of its economic output, according to city economist Ted Egan. And so we wasted generous federal COVID emergency funds trying to bludgeon, cajole and pray for office workers to return downtown instead of planning for change. We're now staring down the consequences for that lack of vision.
The San Francisco metropolitan area's economic recovery from the pandemic ranked 24th out of the 25 largest regions in the U.S., besting only Baltimore, according to a report from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. In the first quarter of 2023, San Francisco's office vacancy rate shot up to a record-high 29.4% — the biggest three-year increase of any U.S. city. The trend isn't likely to end anytime soon: In January, nearly 30% of San Francisco job openings were for hybrid or fully remote work, the highest share of the nation's 50 largest cities. Amid lower property, business and real estate transfer taxes, the city is projecting a $728 million deficit over the next two fiscal years. Transit ridership remains far below pre-pandemic levels. In January, downtown San Francisco BART stations had just 30% of the rider exits they did in 2019, according to a report from Egan's office. Many Bay Area transit agencies, including Muni, are rapidly approaching a fiscal cliff.
San Francisco isn't dead; as of March, it was home to an estimated 173 of the country's 655 companies valued at more than $1 billion. Tourism is beginning to rebound. And new census data shows that San Francisco's population loss is slowing, a sign its pandemic exodus may be coming to an end. But the city can't afford to wait idly for things to reach equilibrium again. It needs to evolve — quickly. Especially downtown. That means rebuilding the neighborhood's fabric, which won't be cheap or easy. Office-to-housing conversions are notoriously tricky and expensive. Demolishing non-historic commercial buildings that no longer serve a purpose in the post-pandemic world is all but banned. And, unlike New York after 9/11, San Francisco is a city that can't seem to stop getting in its own way.
So what's the solution? The CEO of the Bay Area Council suggests public-private partnerships that "could help shift downtown San Francisco's focus from tech — with employees now accustomed to working from home — to research and development, biotech, medical research and manufacturing, which all require in-person workers."
And last week San Francisco's mayor proposed more than 100 changes to streamline the permitting process for small businesses, and on Monday helped introduce legislation making it easier to convert office buildings to housing, expand pop-up business opportunities, and fill some empty storefronts. This follows a February executive order to speed housing construction. The editorial points out that "About 40% of office buildings in downtown San Francisco evaluated in a study would be good candidates for housing due to their physical characteristics and location and could be converted into approximately 11,200 units, according to research from SPUR and the Urban Land Institute San Francisco."
But without some action, the editorial's headline argues that "Downtown San Francisco is at risk of collapsing — and taking much of the Bay Area with it."
This week we start out digging all the way in to the probable death of E3 and the repercussions likely to make their way through the games industry, and then we talk about a lot of games, including Terra Nil, Dredge, Storyteller, Midnight Ghost Hunt, Remnant 2, and a lot more. This week's music: Transviolet - Run Towards the Monster
Around 4 in the morning one Tuesday night in San Francisco, an autonomously-driven Cruise vehicle stopped at a red light — and was rear-ended by a Honda. But then "the Honda driver reversed backward several feet, stopped and drove forward again, making contact with the Cruise vehicle a second time," reports NBC News. After damaging the car and injuring its two test drivers, according to a collision report the Honda then "left the scene without exchanging information."
It's just part of "a pattern bedeviling tech companies that are trying to make driverless cars a reality," reports NBC News, after reviewing collision reports from the California Department of Motor Vehicles:
The reports, which were written by employees of the tech companies, describe 36 instances in 2022 in which a person driving a car or truck left the scene of a crash involving their vehicle and an autonomous vehicle. The problem has continued at a similar pace this year, with seven examples as of early March....
"My best guess is that the drivers think they can't be held liable," said Anderson Franco, a personal injury attorney in the city. "If you are operating your own vehicle and you crash into an autonomous vehicle, the correct thing to do is take photographs, call the police and have it documented," he said. But it's not always clear from the outside of a Cruise or other autonomous vehicle what to do if there's a problem. Cruise said in a statement to NBC News that it was in the process of making its phone number more prominently displayed on the outside of vehicles, so drivers in a crash know who to call....
The human drivers who have hit autonomous vehicles appear to be getting away with little accountability. Autonomous vehicles are usually equipped with a variety of external cameras that could record the license plate numbers of hit-and-run drivers but it's not clear how often the companies have gone down that road.... Cruise said in a statement that the hit-and-runs are usually minor. It said it works with San Francisco police "when necessary" and searches its videos for the license plate numbers of other cars "if needed." Cruise declined to comment on specific cases. Waymo said it has kept its options open about how to respond to hit-and-runs.
California's Department of Motor Vehicles pointed out that because of the limited data available, "it's unclear if the rate of hit-and-run incidents involving autonomous vehicles is higher or lower than the rate involving conventional vehicles."
Let's be real—gaming is awesome. Whether you're slaying dragons or racing cars, there's no denying the appeal of the gaming lifestyle. But, as with all good things, there are some risks and challenges that come with it.
When I was a kid, my parents rented a wood-paneled CRT TV from the electronics store down the street. It had a dodgy remote control that only worked half the time and the picture quality was whatever the total opposite of 8K HDR is. The first time I ever saw a movie was on its curved glass facade. But what I remember most about that tube TV is that it was the first screen on which I saw Michael Keaton's Batman.
Over the course of my life, I've tried at various points to figure out just what it was about the sculpted black rubber of Keaton's cowl that resonated so deeply. It felt elemental in some way, like it had existed long before Tim Burton brought it before a camera, and its image exists as a fundamental layer of developmental sediment in my mind. There were motor skills, then language, then Michael Keaton's Batman.
Now, 30 years after this character had such a profound impact on me, they're dredging him up to help sell the latest attempt at making a good DC movie with "The Flash." Michael Keaton walked away from Batman after 1992's "Batman Returns," leaving behind two perfect movies as the Dark Knight. Now, that legacy is under threat. Am I being a tad dramatic? Yes. But it's only out of my love for these movies and the potential for this nostalgia play to sour the whole thing. And even though "The Flash" isn't out for months, test screenings suggest it's going to be great, and DC Studios co-head James Gunn says "The Flash" is one of the best superhero movies he's ever seen, I'm about to tell you why the whole thing might be a terrible idea.
Keaton's Casting Controversy
In all honesty, there's a part of me that's excited to hear my childhood hero is returning, but there's also something that just isn't sitting right with me about it. In order to understand why bringing Michael Keaton back for "The Flash" is worrying, you have to start at the beginning of the "Beetlejuice" star's run as the beloved icon. So bear with me while we delve into the genesis of "Batman."
By now, most know the story of how, after years of the Caped Crusader struggling to shake the campy image of Adam West's '60s TV show, Tim Burton's "Batman," successfully returned the character to his roots as a mysterious lone vigilante. It's also well known that Burton was inspired by artists and writers such as Frank Miller, whose seminal graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns" had similarly revitalized Batman for comic book readers in 1986. But the director wasn't just seeking inspiration from outside sources. With the box office smash that was 1989's "Batman," Burton brought to life a singular vision, crafted with the help of a cast and crew who couldn't have been more in sync.
That included his leading man. Michael Keaton's casting as Batman caused a now-infamous uproar among fans, who somewhat understandably questioned whether the star of "Night Shift" and "Mr. Mom" could project the pre-eminent power of as iconic a figure as Batman. The controversy had Burton fighting for Keaton after the pair had worked together on the director's then-most recent film, "Beetlejuice." And although this may have seemed like the filmmaker was just sticking up for his pal, there was more to it.
Shared Vision
What outraged fans hadn't realized was that Keaton had an angle on who Bruce Wayne was, and exactly how to play him. As he told the In The Envelope Podcast, "I always knew from the get-go it was Bruce Wayne, that was secret. It was never [...] Batman [...] It's about Bruce Wayne — who's that guy? What kind of person does that?"
But it wasn't just that Keaton knew how to play Bruce Wayne/Batman, it was that his director saw things the same way. In Les Daniels' book "Batman: The Complete History," the actor explained how he went into a meeting with the director thinking, "I have my interpretation of what this movie is, and I have an idea for what I would do, but I can't imagine that anyone would share that." But they did. He continued, "As I was talking to Tim, he just kept nodding, and then I saw his face actually getting more excited [...] I knew that he and I were headed down the right road."
Meanwhile, writer Sam Hamm worked closely with Burton to craft a script that truly represented their dark take on Batman. And when Jack Nicholson agreed to play a truly scary version of The Joker, Burton found himself with yet another artistic comrade. As he explained in a 1989 interview, "The thing with Jack is that he won't do a movie unless he feels like everybody's in sync and making the same thing. So before we ever walked on the set, I knew what he was gonna do." With actors, the director, and writers aligned, "Batman" was shaping up to be a rare instance of a truly singular artistic vision manifesting through a collective effort.
Can The Flash Do Keaton And Burton Justice?
There was still one piece of the puzzle left before Tim Burton could bring his Batman universe to life — more on that later. But by now, it should be obvious that "Batman" was a unique movie in the sense that so many of the creatives involved were on the same page — even if Burton found making "Batman" completely torturous. That was crucial to making it such a memorable and influential film. So what does any of that have to do with "The Flash?" Well, by bringing Keaton into the upcoming film, director Andy Muschietti and the powers that be at Warner Bros. have tapped into a legacy they might not be fully prepared, or worse, aren't concerned about continuing.
This isn't to say that "The Flash" is going to be a bad movie in any way. It's simply to say that a project designed around another character, which features Ben Affleck's Batman, two versions of The Flash, introduces a new Supergirl, and involves the return of villains from "Man Of Steel" can't possibly do Keaton's Batman the justice he deserves. More importantly, it can't do justice to Tim Burton's singular artistic vision. All it can ever hope to do, given such a cramped cast — and that's to say nothing of the narrative leg work this film is doing by resetting the multiverse and teeing up James Gunn's "Superman: Legacy" — is to mimic that vision. All I'm saying is, I truly hope it does a decent job. My lingering question, however, is "how can it?"
Digital Dark Knights
We've already seen how many factors had to fall into place in order for Tim Burton to create as effective a film as he did back in '89. Unhappily, what we're likely getting with "The Flash" is what we've gotten with other modern attempts at leveraging the popularity of classic blockbusters. That is to say; uncanny confections of beloved characters, close enough to the original to look convincing but not close enough to have any of the cultural impact or artistic meaning. How many CGI 1980s Arnold Schwarzeneggers will it take to convince us that this digital necromancy is folly?
I know we'll at least be spared a CGI Michael Keaton who will, of course, be returning in full flesh and blood form. But did you see "The Flash" trailer? There's a point at which an obvious CG version of his Batman dives into some sort of industrial pit to take out a group of thugs, and there's something genuinely jarring about seeing the hero we all know for his awkward Bat-turn and stilted gestures move with the unnatural slickness of a modern digital double.
But even if there were no CGI Keaton in "The Flash," it wouldn't matter. The question with all these ungodly resurrections of beloved characters from a bygone time is this: what do they mean removed from their original context?
Gotham City And The World Of The Burtonverse
In terms of context, Michael Keaton's Batman was somewhat defined by Anton Furst and Bo Welch's production design on "Batman" and "Batman Returns" respectively. Saying that Gotham City is a character in these movies is beyond cliché by now, but there is a symbiotic relationship between Gotham and Batman. It's a complaint you hear about Christopher Nolan's Gotham in "The Dark Knight," where the director mostly used Chicago as a stand-in, or "The Dark Knight" rises and its heavy use of Pittsburgh cityscapes — none of these places felt like Gotham City. And often, Batman felt out of place within them, especially when he was shot fighting Tom Hardy's Bane in broad daylight.
Production designer Anton Furst's creative approach to Gotham City, on the other hand, was, you guessed it, completely in line with Burton's grim conceptualization of Batman's world. This made Keaton's Batman all the more believable. He was the human manifestation of Burton and Furst's industrial hellscape. His black rubber and perma-scowl represented the decrepit Gotham of the Burtonverse in human form — as if a gargoyle had pried itself from the side of a gothic edifice, become flesh, and waged war on the criminal activity it had seen play out for decades on the street beneath. How, if at all, will that fit into the world of "The Flash" — a movie made in the age when blockbusters have increasingly shed any artistic ambitions in favor of appeasing fan expectations? Do I know that Muschietti has no artistic ambitions with this movie? Of course not. But what's the likelihood that whatever artistic ambitions he does have will put Keaton's Batman at the center? Or not be overshadowed by the need to please fans and set up the next phase of DC's cinematic saga?
Loner To Mentor?
You might say, "Why should Michael Keaton be the center of a movie about The Flash?" But that's the point. He makes sense as one element of Tim Burton's overall artistic vision. Yanking him from that context and dropping him somewhere in the twisted wreckage of the Snyderverse and its various offshoots just seems kind of sad.
All of this wouldn't be so concerning if "The Flash" trailer didn't suggest we might be in trouble. Aside from a scene in which Keaton appears Batsuited up in the middle of the day — a big Batman-on-film faux pas — there's the slightly too tongue-in-cheek delivery of his legendary line "I'm Batman." It comes as Keaton emerges from the shadows of the Batcave, with Ezra Miller's two versions of Barry Allen looking on. After which, it becomes clear that Keaton's Dark Knight will be playing some sort of support role in their quest to reset timelines following Allen's multiversal adventure gone awry.
But the Keaton Batman/Bruce Wayne was always a loner, and that's how he worked best. The actor even played up the brooding loner angle by cutting more than half of his own dialogue from "Batman Returns," and it worked brilliantly. To have him in some sort of Tony Stark-esque role — which was rumored to be one of the original plans for future DC movies before James Gunn took over — just seems to undermine much of the mystery that made this character what he is. Perhaps this Bruce Wayne has evolved in the time he's been away. And that's fine — intriguing, even. I just really hope that element is addressed and it makes sense within the framework of the film.
The Flash And Burton's Films Are Very Different
In a "Batman" making-of featurette, Michael Keaton said that before he took on the lead role, he became very aware that, "if this character doesn't work this movie doesn't work." But that goes both ways. If the movie around Batman doesn't work, then Batman doesn't work. And with "The Flash," it seems we're talking about a wholly different approach than "Batman" and "Batman Returns" — both of which were tailored around Batman himself.
"The Flash" looks set to be a fun blockbuster outing with some truly emotional moments stemming from Barry Allen and his mother's relationship. The "Flashpoint" storyline on which it's based is one of the best-known DC story arcs of the modern age, and for good reason — though, the film does feel too small for its source material. It should make for "Spider-Man: No Way Home" levels of entertainment, and DC certainly needs that boost right now. I can't wait to see it.
It's just that, and this isn't an exaggeration, Tim Burton's Batman films, Michael Keaton's performances in them, and Anton Furst and Bo Welch's Gotham Cities helped shape who I am, and I know I'm not alone. They spoke to some aesthetic sense in me so profoundly, and at such a young age, that I feel protective of them, and maybe that's unfair. These aren't my movies. But what I do know is that they weren't just entertaining. They weren't just fun. What those two films have to say from an artistic standpoint is the topic of an even bigger article. Suffice it to say that "Batman" and "Batman Returns" represent the unlikely realization of the kind of artistic vision you don't see in the blockbuster space anymore.
Hoping For The Best
In his controversial New York Times piece, Martin Scorsese wrote that modern film franchises, "lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist" As a kid, I thought I was just watching cool Batman movies. Now, I realize "Batman" and "Batman Returns," by smuggling in that "unifying vision of an individual artist," were really making me fall in love with art.
In that sense, my concern about bringing Keaton back is more a concern about the direction of popular movies in general. There's plenty of incredible artistic expression to be found in movie-making today, arguably even more so than when I was a kid. Just in the last year, I've already been blown away by films the cutting-edge liminal nightmare that was "Skinamarink" and the hauntingly brilliant "Aftersun." But there's something to be said for sneaking some of that artistry into blockbuster filmmaking — and I guess I'm saying it.
I hope there's at least an element of that in "The Flash." I hope some kid sees Michael Keaton's Batman in that movie and his iconic image hits them as profoundly as it did me. I worry that without the rest of the artistic vision surrounding him, it won't. But I'm hoping. And I'll be there on opening night to catch a glimpse of my childhood hero back in the suit after 30 years. It'll be weird seeing it play out in the sharp digital light of IMAX and not projected by a tube across glowing scanlines, obscured by layers of grain, but we've come a long way since my parents rented that TV. I just hope it's been in the right direction.
While the exact origin of the trend cannot necessarily be pinpointed, something calcified in the popular consciousness with the release of Gary Ross' 2012 film "The Hunger Games." It seemed that archery was the hippest way for an action heroine to defend themselves.
In "The Hunger Games," Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss Everdeen, an impoverished teenager living in a dystopian future carefully segregated by class. Katniss enlists in the titular Games, a televised fight to the death. Luckily, Katniss is skilled with a bow and is be able to defend herself from other teen attackers. Katniss became part of a cadre of pop culture archers that included Neytiri from "Avatar," Merida in "Brave," Mulan in "Mulan," Hanna in "Hanna," Ygritte in "Game of Thrones," Eva Green's character in "The Golden Compass," Bae Doona's character in "The Host," the 2005 version of Guinevere, and Hawkeye from "The Avengers." Also, one might loop in the archer elf Legolas in the "Lord of the Rings" movies, and whichever version of Robin Hood you prefer.
While one may only theorize why archery became such a popular movie activity, it was certainly embraced by audiences, and "badass archer" briefly became a dominant cinematic archetype. Some studies even pointed to the "Hunger Games" movies as being directly responsible for young women taking archery lessons in real life.
On a 2015 episode of NPR's "Fresh Air," interviewer Terry Gross asked Jennifer Lawrence about archery and its prominence in the "Hunger Games" movies. Lawrence revealed that her archery training for the films was extensive, to the point where her entire physique changed. Indeed, as the film's continued, she required costume alterations to accommodate her musculature.
Khatuna Lorig
To learn archery for "The Hunger Games," Lawrence had to privilege of studying under Olympian athlete Khatuna Lorig, a Georgian-born athlete who competed for the United States in the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona. She won the bronze medal that year. Holding dual citizenship, Lorig also competed for Georgia in the 1996, 2000, 2008, and 2012 Olympic Games. She would continue to win medals at other world tournaments for years, having most recently won a gold and a silver at the Pan American Games in 2019.
As a teacher, Lorig was effective at instructing Lawrence on how to operate a recurve bow (that is: the type of bow that curves away from the archer when the bowstring is removed). Lawrence was given a crash course, and Lorig was hard on her student. Regardless, Lawrence says she found the experience positive, even if one of her arms, it seems, became longer as a result. She said:
"I really, really enjoyed archery. I had an amazing instructor, Khatuna. She was Georgian. She was an excellent instructor -- very, very strict. If I had bad form, she would pinch my ear. She didn't really put up with anything. It totally changed my body. It was so crazy, when I went back for the fitting for the second movie for 'Catching Fire,' my shoulders were two inches broader and my right arm is one inch longer than my left arm, permanently, I guess. But I really enjoy it."
Lawrence also admitted on "Fresh Air" that a blockbuster like "The Hunger Games" wasn't on her radar as an actress, more often opting for smaller, indie dramas. Katniss was a big shift for her, but a big one. Lawrence holds the Guinness World Record for highest grossing action heroine.
Wired pays a visit to a half-finished Microsoft data center that rises out of the flat North Holland farmland — where the security guard tells a local councillor he's not allowed to visit the site, and "Within minutes, the argument has escalated, and the guard has his hand around Ruiter's throat."
The security guard lets go of Ruiter within a few seconds, and the councillor escapes with a red mark across his neck. Back in his car, Ruiter insists he's fine. But his hands shake when he tries to change gears. He says the altercation — which he will later report to the police — shows the fog of secrecy that surrounds the Netherlands' expanding data center business.
"We regret an interaction that took place outside our data center campus, apparently involving one of Microsoft's subcontractors," says Craig Cincotta, general manager at Microsoft, adding that the company would cooperate with the authorities.
The heated exchange between Ruiter and Microsoft's security guard shows how contentious Big Tech's data centers have become in rural parts of the Netherlands. As the Dutch government sets strict environmental targets to cut emissions, industries are being forced to compete for space on Dutch farmland — pitting big tech against the increasingly political population of Dutch farmers.
There are around 200 data centers in the Netherlands, most of them renting out server space to several different companies. But since 2015, the country has also witnessed the arrival of enormous "hyperscalers," buildings that generally span at least 10,000 square feet and are set up to service a single (usually American) tech giant. Lured here by the convergence of European internet cables, temperate climates, and an abundance of green energy, Microsoft and Google have built hyperscalers; Meta has tried and failed.
Against the backdrop of an intensifying Dutch nitrogen crisis, building these hyperscalers is becoming more controversial. Nitrogen, produced by cars, agriculture, and heavy machinery used in construction, can be a dangerous pollutant, damaging ecosystems and endangering people's health. The Netherlands produces four times more nitrogen than the average across the EU. The Dutch government has pledged to halve emissions by 2030, partly by persuading farmers to reduce their livestock herds or leave the industry altogether. Farmers have responded with protests, blockading roads with tractors and manure and dumping slurry outside the nature minister's home.
Farmers object that Microsoft is building its data center before it's even received government permits certifying that it won't worsen the nitrogen problem, according to the article. In response the Farmer Citizen Movement has sprung up, and last month it became the joint-largest party in the Dutch Senate. One party leader tells Wired, "It is a waste of fertile soil to put the data centers boxes here."
And Wired adds that opposition to datacenter development is also growing elsewhere in Europe.
As of this writing, actor Vaughn Armstrong still holds the record for the most number of characters throughout "Star Trek." Jeffrey Combs technically might have Armstrong beat, but that's only if you count multiple identical clones as separate roles.
Of the main cast, however, Brent Spiner currently holds the record for playing the greatest number of characters. Apart from his central role as the android Data on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Spiner also played his own evil twin brother, Lore, a Data prototype named B-4 (in "Star Trek: Nemesis"), and the androids' creator Dr. Noonien Soong. On "Star Trek: Enterprise," he played Dr. Arik Soong, an ancestor of Noonien, who was a villain keen on eugenics. In "Star Trek: Picard," he played an even more distant ancestor Dr. Adam Soong, who lived in the year 2024. In both the first and third seasons of "Picard," he also played Dr. Altan Soong, Noonien's biological son. That's seven roles in all.
This number doesn't count the "Next Generation" episode "A Fistful of Datas" wherein a holodeck malfunction transformed the population of an entire artificially created Old West town into Data. In that episode, Spiner played at least four additional characters.
Spiner recently returned to "Picard" to play an amalgam character. It turns out that Altan created an android that contains the brain of Data, Lore, Dr. Soong, B-4, and even Data's daughter Lal. Spiner, who has been ambivalent about playing Data in the past, clearly welcomed the acting challenge of playing so many characters at once.
In a recent interview with Comics Beat, Spiner, now 74, floated the idea of playing Noonien again. His ideas are tantalizing.
Often Wrong Soong
At the start of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Data had no memories of his earliest days alive; he was discovered abandoned in pieces on a remote Federation outpost and reassembled by Federation scientists. His creator, Dr. Soong, was presumed dead, a fact confirmed by his brother Lore. By the show's fourth season, Data and Lore would be remotely summoned by Dr. Soong, now incredibly old and eager to give Data an emotions chip; Data was incapable of feeling because of the missing chip. Data, rather logically, asks Dr. Soong why he was created. They have a brief exchange about how humans are fascinated by the past and are eager to perpetuate into the future. Having children, Soong argues, is a way of assuring immortality.
But little was revealed about Soong's life and philosophy at large, though it was implied that he inherited his interest in androids from several previous generations. The details of Noonien himself, however, have yet to be explored. Brent Spiner suggested finally covering Soong's life in a standalone "Star Trek" series. When asked if he'd even play all seven of his characters at once, Spiner quipped:
"One can only hope! It's high time, don't you think? I don't think that's ever going to happen. I think this one's as close as you're going to get. You know, I think I'm too old -- but I would like to see the ultimate Soong episode, or series or miniseries. Just finding out who this family is. Where they came from, really. Because you always have to ask yourself: "How did this guy get a Chinese last name? Who was he, really? Why are all iterations of him so into eugenics and creating perfect species?"
Eugenics?
As was iterated in "Picard" and "Enterprise," the Soong family was weirdly fixated on "the perfect being," and both Adam and Arik were eager to manipulate genetics to that end. Indeed, it was Arik's genetic tinkering with Klingon DNA that caused them to more closely resemble humans for a few generations. That was the in-canon excuse as to why Klingons looked human in the original "Star Trek" series, but why they had pronounced alien foreheads in "Next Generation." Arik, when apprehended for his genetic crimes, announced that a positronic being might be the way to go, and that it would only take a few generations to make an android. The genetic manipulation would also explain why multiple generations across the centuries all happen to look exactly like Brent Spiner.
It was never explained, however, why the Soongs started on that path the begin with. Spiner wanted to look at that more closely.
While Spiner clearly has a knack for playing multiple characters in a scene -- or perhaps the scripts he was handed allowed him that opportunity -- he did say that he wouldn't necessarily want to play Dr. Soong in a spinoff series. "It's a really intriguing story of a family," he said. "It could even be told without me. There could be other actors who do it."
Not only would this allow Spiner's acting legacy to continue in "Star Trek" for perpetuity, but it would allow other, newer performers to step in. Also, seeing as how the androids are essentially immortal, but human actors are not, shunting Data's brain into new bodies would make sense in canon.
Just about anything can be explored in "Trek" right now -- there are six shows at once! -- so why not a Soong miniseries?
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: China's chip industry will be "reborn" as a result of U.S. sanctions, a top boss at Huawei said Friday, as the Chinese telecommunications giant confirmed a breakthrough in semiconductor design technology. Eric Xu, rotating chairman at Huawei, issued fighting words against Washington's tech export restrictions on China. "I believe China's semiconductor industry will not sit idly by, but take efforts around ... self-strengthening and self reliance," according to an official translation of Xu's comments during a press conference. "For Huawei, we will render our support to all such self-saving, self-strengthening and self reliance efforts of the Chinese semiconductor industry."
The U.S. is concerned that China could use advanced semiconductors for military purposes. Huawei's Xu said these developments could boost, rather than hamper China's domestic semiconductor industry. "I believe China's semiconductor industry will get reborn under such sanctions and realize a very strong and self-reliant industry," Xu said. Last week, Huawei claimed to have completed work on electronic design automation tools for laying out and making chips down to 14nm process nodes.
"But Huawei ideally needs chips of a much smaller nanometer size for more advanced applications, which they are currently finding it difficult to obtain," adds Reuters. "The company is still reeling from the effects of U.S. sanctions -- on Friday, it said net profit dropped 69% year-on-year in 2022, marking the biggest decline on record."
Although ARM-based single-board computers are more popular by far, there’s a time and place for x86 SBCs. In general, they often pack more of a punch and can be used in applications where power consumption is of lesser concern than performance such as server hosting and emulation.
This post contains spoilersthrough the seventh episode in season 3 of "Star Trek: Picard."
As of this writing, seven episodes of "Star Trek: Picard" have aired, and we've learned many secrets about the show's primary antagonist, Vadic (Amanda Plummer). Captaining a ship called the Shrike, Vadic has the ability to form weaponized portals in space and uses this technology to redirect enemy fire back at them. The Shrike can also fling entire starships using its overpowered tractor beam, and a lot of dialogue has been devoted to how well-armed it is. Vadic projects a slithery intensity when talking to her potential foes, and sports facial scars and the slicked-forward hairstyle of a proper supervillain. Vadic, however, becomes scared in private when talking to her Changeling commanding officer. Her villainous arrogance is merely a show.
We eventually learn that Vadic is also a Changeling. Following the Dominion War (a central event of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") she had been captured by a Federation scientist (also Plummer), who subjected her and several other Changelings (who ordinarily live in a liquid state) to horrible tortures and medical experiments. Vadic eventually revolted, took the form of her torturer, and set about on a quest for revenge.
While the "singular villain who wants revenge" is a too-tired trope of "Star Trek" (the feature films in particular), Plummer has been given the time and the leeway to establish just how scary and threatening Vadic is.
In a recent interview with TV Line, showrunner Terry Matalas pointed out that Plummer's performance was something of a question mark, at least at first. It seems that Plummer was busy shooting another TV series, so she was unavailable for rehearsals. No one knew what kind of performance she was going to give until she was already on set. This left everyone, including her co-stars, uneasy.
Acting To A Blank Screen
Terry Matalas may have been a little scared, but he was resolute in casting Amanda Plummer. He admitted he has been a fan of hers for many years, stemming from when he saw her in several of her more notable 1990s feature films as well as one of her more famous stage performances. He wrote the role with the actor in mind, and Matalas felt he tailored the part well. The showrunner said:
"I have always had this fascination with Amanda Plummer. I mean, going back to her winning the Tony for 'Agnes of God,' to 'The Fisher King' to 'Pulp Fiction' to 'The Prophecy' ... I just loved her. There were two actors that we wrote for: One was Amanda Plummer. The other was Todd Stashwick, who plays Shaw, who I've worked with before on '12 Monkeys.' There was never anyone else ever envisioned in those roles besides those two people, and the value of that is you get to write towards their strengths."
But, that didn't mean everything went as smoothly as Matalas would have liked. He pointed out that Plummer was so busy, that her appearance became a last-minute proposition. A lot of "Picard" had to be shot before her actual arrival on set, leaving many actors talking to a blank viewscreen to be filled in later. Luckily, when the time came, Plummer brought the villainy. Matalas said:
"Amanda was shooting another show, 'Ratched,' so she came in after we had already shot the majority of episodes 1 through 5. So we didn't know who was going to appear on the viewscreen. By the first rehearsal, we were all holding our breath, and [when] she gave that performance, people were hugging each other, people were congratulating each other. We were so thrilled to have a classic, larger-than-life 'Star Trek' villain."
Villainy?
"Star Trek," of course, often gets a lot of traction by being more morally nuanced than a "hero/villain" dynamic would allow. There are plenty of scary, cruel, and destructive characters throughout the franchise, but most of them are depicted as fully realized people with motivations and belief sets that stand counter to our own. Villainy is an exciting dramatic tool, but it doesn't have much of a place in the usually staid, diplomatic world of "Star Trek."
Terry Matalas wanted to address this by saying that Vadic did indeed have her motivations, having been filled with justified wrath over being a tortured prisoner of war. In Matalas' words, she "has her own story and reasons to sympathize with her as well. [...] She has very personal reasons, but she also answers to a higher power, let's just say."
Matalas was also comfortable with Vadic's behavior on "Picard," as she links up to the established canon. As a Changeling, Trekkies will be able to understand her motivations better than if she were in it for novel reasons. Fans of "Deep Space Nine" will have many years of backstory to draw on as well as a new mystery to solve: Why did the Changelings come out of hiding, what is their plan, and how deep does the conspiracy run?
Three episodes of "Picard" remain. The answers to these questions are forthcoming.
In season 3 of "Star Trek: Picard," the original crew from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" have returned to help their old friend Jean-Luc (Patrick Stewart) in one last great adventure. Enterprise engineer and Starfleet museum operator Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) has ended up back in the thick of things against his will after Picard came to him for help along with one of his daughters, Sidney (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut). Sidney steers the helm of the U.S.S. Titan and is quite a bit different from her dear dad, but the other La Forge daughter is a chip off the old block. Alandra not only works with her dad at the museum, she's also an engineer. What's more, she's played by LeVar Burton's real-life daughter, Mica Burton.
Mica managed to get the gig without involving her dad at all, and seeing the two of them onscreen together is truly lovely. There's real love and a genuine father-daughter relationship behind the fictional one, and that's pretty darn cool. In a recent interview with Collider, she explained that there are some traits she picked up from watching her dad that ended up becoming a part of her character as well.
It's All In The Hands
When asked about the similarities between Alandra and her dad compared to her sister Sidney, Mica explained that at least one similarity was intentional on her part:
"A mannerism I picked up from my dad on set that he didn't notice until he saw the first picture of us in uniform together, is that I hold my hands exactly how he holds his hands in front of him and behind him. And I think that is kind of who Alandra is. She so much looks up to her father that she so much wants to be like him, but also envies Sidney for having the courage to be somewhat different. But I think that both sisters have their own little mini versions of Geordi in themselves."
What's interesting is that Geordi tends to stand in similar positions to the military stance for "at rest," with his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands folded either in front of him or behind him at waist level. It makes sense that he would default to that stance, because once you learn it, it becomes your default. (There's a reason it's "at rest," because it's a pretty comfortable way to stand!) Starfleet is kind of an intergalactic military, after all. It's easy to spot the similarities in the way that Mica and Geordi both stand, but there's plenty more in common between all three Starfleet La Forges.
Stellar Sisters
One thing Geordi clearly instilled in his daughters is a willingness to stand up for what they believe is right, even when it's not always easy to do so. Sidney went her own way in Starfleet, becoming a pilot instead of following in her father's footsteps and working in engineering, and both daughters demand that he allow them to help with Picard's mission. They're not afraid because they've heard all of the tales of their father's heroism, and both are looking to do some heroic things themselves.
Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" is now widely regarded as one of the best superhero films of all time, particularly for its gruesome update of Batman's ultimate villain, the Joker. Heath Ledger delivered a jolting take on the villain in question, one that's overshadowed every Joker performance before or since. Surprisingly though, not everyone was in love with Ledger's update: Jack Nicholson, who played the villain in Tim Burton's "Batman," was reportedly "furious" over it. He's understandably protective over the role, telling MTV in 2007, "The Joker comes from my childhood. That's how I got involved with it in the first place. It's a part I always thought I should play."
Though Nicholson always had a connection to the character, and even wanted to portray the Joker again in a sequel, it was Burton who first inspired him to take the part in the 1989 film. "Tim Burton's a genius," the actor said. "That's why I did the movie. I did the movie based on a single conversation with him."
'[The Joker] Should Have A Humorous Dark Side To Him'
For Nicholson, there was a clear appeal to working with Tim Burton, and it began with their shared history in animation. Burton's tenure with Disney's animation division is well known, but Nicholson also got his start as an office assistant for MGM Animation. As a result, they both had "similar ideas" about their version of the Joker. "Tim said [the Joker] should have a humorous dark side to him," Nicholson explained. That's pretty much the common thread that unites every Joker performance, but Burton's direction was apparently the secret ingredient.
"I don't think they ever really captured Tim Burton's spirit [since he stopped being involved]," Nicholson continued. "They kind of drove the franchise into the ground." One has to wonder what the actor thought of Joel Schumaker's sequels, or whether he's seen any other Joker performances since. It's been 15 years since Heath Ledger took his place as the Clown Prince of Crime, and the role has been recast three times over — through Jared Leto, Joaquin Phoenix and Barry Keoghan, respectively.
At the time, it didn't seem like Nicholson didn't enjoy any of the Caped Crusader's films after "Batman Returns," and though he hadn't completely written Nolan's films off, he wasn't in a huge rush to check out "The Dark Knight," either. "I'm not inclined to watch it because of what I said. But if it's a good movie, I'll catch up with it somewhere." Probably depends on how well the Los Angeles Lakers are doing.
To be a part of the "Star Wars" legacy that George Lucas created is the ultimate dream for so many performers who grew up watching the original trilogy. If an actor gets to be a part of this vast galaxy of creatures and characters, that feeling of total elation, however, is probably quickly eclipsed by the fear of revealing anything about the clandestine project you're working on.
For tentpole films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Lucasfilm, there's so much riding on keeping everything top secret that it's a wonder actors are even allowed to promote these projects at all. For example, a few months before "Rogue One" came out, one of the actors accidentally let out a huge spoiler that gave away a major character's death. Once audiences actually saw the dark ending for "Rogue One" where everyone perishes thanks to a massive blast from the Death Star, that accidental reveal didn't seem so disastrous.
Diego Luna also got in trouble on the "Rogue One" press tour, but not in the way you might think. While trying to avoid saying anything about the plot that led directly into "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope," Luna kept mentioning that he's always wanted to touch Jabba the Hutt. "The texture of Jabba is something I need to discover," he jokingly said during the original promotion for the film. The combination of Luna and Jabba was apparently too exciting for the internet to handle, and the memes and speculation turned his cute, but admittedly weird, aside into a viral sensation. According to Luna, those words have been haunting him ever since.
Maybe We Should Stop Asking Diego Luna About Jabba The Hutt
For what it's worth, Diego Luna's fascination with touching the skin of Jabba the Hutt sounds exactly like something a kid would think about watching "Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi" for the first time. Jabba is one of the greatest puppets ever made — no wonder Luna would want to rub his belly!
Luna likely wishes he never said anything about touching Jabba because he's been asked about it constantly over the years. When the actor was on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in March 2020 promoting Netflix's "Narcos: Mexico," Fallon tried to get any information out of him about the then-upcoming "Rogue One" prequel series, "Andor." Luna expertly avoided that question, only to have Fallon play a clip of him gushing over Jabba during the "Rogue One" press tour. "It suddenly started to feel like I was in love with Jabba. It's not, I'm sorry!" Luna said to Fallon. "I am not in love with Jabba. That was one big mistake I made." Luna also shared that everyone started sending him countless Jabba gifts — further evidence that he can't escape his innocent, off-the-cuff comment about Jabba's squishiness.
Baby Yoda a.k.a. Grogu was on everyone's minds when Luna appeared on Fallon, and Luna fell even deeper into the sarlacc pit when the late-night host asked him if Jabba would cameo in "Andor." "I hope baby Jabba," Luna quipped. "It's all about babies." The internet was already way ahead of him, and Baby Jabba the Hutt was born.
What's The Best Possibility For Andor And Jabba To Meet?
After Princess Leia strangled Jabba on his own sail barge in "Return of the Jedi," fans eventually saw Jabba's Palace again in the teaser for "The Book of Boba Fett" after the season 2 finale of "The Mandalorian." The events of "Andor" occur roughly 14 years before the events of "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett," so Jabba would look roughly the same as he did in "Return of the Jedi." If a cameo occurs in season 2 of "Andor," Diego Luna could have the chance to make contact with a massive Jabba puppet that resembles the creature from his childhood. "Andor," however, is a much more grounded "Star Wars" show focusing on the forgotten heroes that sparked the Rebellion, so one could argue that Jabba wouldn't fit in well in the story that they're trying to tell.
It would make more sense to have Cassian Andor and Jabba appear in animated form in something like "Star Wars: Visions" or in a one-off comic book issue, just to appease fans and finally bring Luna's long national nightmare to a close. Officially, StarWars.com even got in on the fun in 2019, asking Luna if any progress had been made. "I mean, I didn't put it in the contract again because I'm an idiot," Luna remarked. "But I really hope so. I'm just here to do that. I'll do everything else to just touch Jabba."
More recently, /Film's Ethan Anderton also followed up with Luna toward the end of the first season of "Andor" for any updates on the matter. "I don't think it's happening," Luna admitted. "I don't think it's happening, but I got over it. I've done so much fun stuff so far that I don't need that anymore." Do we?
Now, we don't know what the residual details are like for any of the actors in James Cameron's "Avatar" films, but considering both movies are currently in the top 5 highest-grossing films in history, everyone on screen is likely getting a pretty nice payday for their participation. Getting to appear in any of the "Avatar" films would be a dream come true for plenty of folks, but Michelle Rodriguez — who played combat pilot Trudy Chacón in the first film — has no interest in returning to the beautiful world of Pandora. In case you've forgotten, Chacón was a sympathetic figure to the Na'vi in "Avatar," and ends up sacrificing herself during an extremely emotional moment in the final battle to help save the extraterrestrial humanoids of the moon jungle.
In most movies, death marks the end of a character's journey, but James Cameron doesn't limit his storytelling with silly constraints like mortality. As we've already seen with Stephen Lang's character Colonel Miles Quaritch, reincarnation is possible in the world of "Avatar." While the mortal body can be destroyed, memories and brain functions can be transferred to a new body, so theoretically, anyone in the "Avatar" world can make a return. However, during an interview with Vanity Fair ahead of the release of Rodriguez's new movie, "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves," she stood firm that Trudy Chacón won't be one of them ... despite pleas from Cameron himself.
The Fourth Time Is Not The Charm
As Michelle Rodriguez explained during the interview, the last time she crossed paths with James Cameron, he pitched her the idea of her character making a return in the future "Avatar" sequels — considering some of the folks who died in the first film came back for "The Way of the Water." Rodriguez was not on board, and reportedly told him, "You can't do that — I died as a martyr." It's honestly refreshing to hear that she cares enough about the integrity of Trudy Chacón's story to make sure her death continues to mean something, but Rodriguez's disinterest in coming back from the dead is also rooted in the fact she's done it three other times in her career:
"I came back in 'Resident Evil,' I wasn't supposed to. I came back in 'Machete,' I wasn't supposed to. I came back with Letty [in the 'Fast & Furious' movies], I wasn't supposed to. We can't do a fourth [time], that would be overkill!"
The frequency in which Rodriguez plays characters who die only to pop up in later films just because is pretty wild once it's spelled out. "I don't understand, it's so weird," Rodriguez told the publication. "I guess they don't know what to do with the girl who doesn't have a boyfriend." Look, she has a point. Rodriguez doesn't personally subscribe to any labels, but she has publicly confirmed that she isn't straight, and often plays canonically queer or single, queer-coded characters in action films. If you ask me, it's a testament to her talent as a performer because she consistently plays characters the audiences love and are devastated to lose.
There are a lot of memorable characters who orbit the central study group on the NBC comedy series "Community," but few had the ability to send everything into chaos quite like Señor Ben Chang. The character starts out as the study group's Spanish teacher, but eventually ends up becoming one of the series' biggest antagonists. Played with bottomless energy by actor Ken Jeong, Chang is one of the most ridiculous characters in sitcom history. His arc over the six seasons (and upcoming movie) of the series is one of the most extreme of the entire cast, and that's pretty incredible considering Troy (Donald Glover) ends up sailing the globe with LeVar Burton.
In a Reddit Ask Me Anything, series creator Dan Harmon explained that while Chang was fantastic in the authority position of a professor, he was just too great to relegate to the realm of teaching forever. Instead, Harmon and the writers decided to use Chang like another famous sitcom character: Henry Winkler's The Fonz from "Happy Days"!
An Agent Of Chaos
The AMA took place between the second and third seasons, when Chang had gone from being a Spanish teacher to a student at Greendale, taking Anthropology with the study group and wreaking general havoc. When Dan Harmon was asked about Chang's change in power, he replied:
"I think that Chang's craziness did function better in a position of authority. I didn't want to have everyone keep taking Spanish after year 1 so I thought I'd see what would happen if we took the lid off and just let him be like the Fonz, there when you need him."
Harmon then went on to explain that Chang would be in a place of authority over the study group at some point in season 3, which is a bit of an understatement given that Chang takes over the entire school near the end of the season. The idea of using Chang "like the Fonz" is an interesting one, however, because Chang operates as a wild card that appears whenever the story needs a true agent of chaos. The study group can be plenty chaotic, but they have distinct personalities and character rules that can't be broken without sacrificing who they are. Chang, on the other hand, can do anything.
No Sharks To Jump, Just Monkey Gas
On "Happy Days," the Fonz was the ultimate wild card, showing up whenever things got a little too wholesome around 1950s Milwaukee. He started as a side character, but his popularity made him get more and more screen time as the show went on, much like Chang. One of the most (in)famous episodes of "Happy Days" featured Fonzie jumping over a shark on water skis, spawning the phrase "jumping the shark." (When a series "jumps the shark," the idea is that they've started to reach irrelevancy and are doing more extreme things to appease viewers.) Ben Chang never jumped a shark, but he did hold an entire community college hostage, live in the vents of the school, and end up being chased out of his home by poisonous "monkey gas." Honestly, Chang started out so totally wild that there really wasn't any way he could jump the shark, because it was jumped from the moment he appeared onscreen teaching Spanish.
It will be interesting to see where Chang has ended up after all of these years in the "Community" movie that's in the works ... but you can almost guarantee that it will be wonderfully bizarre.
15 years after recruiting Tony Stark for the Avengers Initiative in the post-credits scene for "Iron Man," Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is finally getting the spotlight to himself in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's long overdue for the beloved character, who's been constantly stuck playing second fiddle to Earth's Mightiest Heroes and other major do-gooders in the franchise, most notably Steve Rogers and Carol Danvers. Admittedly, the latter's 2019 solo film, "Captain Marvel," featured Fury as a co-lead opposite Brie Larson as the titular cosmic superhero in something of a 1990s-styled buddy action-comedy throwback (one that took place in the actual '90s, no less). Still, for as much as that movie plays like a backdoor Nick Fury origin story, its whole vibe doesn't really befit someone as morally grey and ethically flexible as SLJ's super-spy/agent.
The Fury-led "Secret Invasion" series, on the other hand, may yet fulfill the promise of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" by tapping deeper into the cynical, disillusioned mindset of '70s paranoia thrillers in the vein of "The Conversation" and "Three Days of the Condor." Loosely adapted from writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Leinil Francis Yu's 2008 Marvel comic book storyline, the show will pick up with Fury in the aftermath of "Avengers: Endgame," at a point when the grizzled soldier is understandably struggling to process everything that went down in that film.
"Even Nick Fury can be shaken, you know?" said Jackson, speaking with Vanity Fair as part of the publication's first-look exclusive for the show.
'It's Part Of His Vulnerability Now.'
The last time we saw him in "Spider-Man: Far From Home," the real Nick Fury was chilling on a Skrull spaceship while his Skrull buddy Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) pretended to be him back on Earth. "He's up there trying to process what the f**k happened, you know? And what his place in the world is. The death of Iron Man, the death of Black Widow, with that stuff going on he just kind of checked out," Samuel L. Jackson explained.
Fury's vulnerable state of mind is further reflected in his appearance, as "Secret Invasion" finds the character operating without his trademark eyepatch. It's not that the vision in his damaged eye has been restored, either. Where "Captain Marvel" turned his blinded orb into something of a joke that poked fun at Fury's sense of pride (revealing that, contrary to rumors that he lost his eye doing something really macho, the truth is he simply annoyed an irritable Flerken disguised as an adorable orange cat), "Secret Invasion" repurposes it as a symbol of his emotional trauma and uncertainty post-"Endgame." Here's how Jackson put it:
"He just doesn't wear the patch. The patch is part of who the strong Nick Fury was. It's part of his vulnerability now. You can look at it and see he's not this perfectly indestructible person. He doesn't feel like that guy."
Between digging deeper into Fury as a character (including his shadier dealings in the past) and a global conspiracy plotline that involves shape-shifting Skrulls attempting to quietly secure high-ranking positions of power around the world, "Secret Invasion" has the potential to be one of the more compelling MCU entries this side of "Endgame." We'll see how everything shakes out when the show premieres June 21, 2023, on Disney+.
I hate to be the one to inform you of this, but Bill Skarsgård has revealed he will not be returning to the role of Pennywise for the upcoming "It" prequel series, "Welcome to Derry."
"Yeah, we'll see what they come up with and what they do with it. As of now, I'm not currently involved with it," the actor explained during an interview with Jake's Takes. "If someone else gets to do it, my advice would be: Do it your own. Make it your own. Have fun with it. What I found pleasurable about that character is how abstract he was."
Is this a super sad but understandable choice for Skarsgård, considering the actor shouldn't be unfairly imprisoned by his most famous character? Most rational folks would say yes here, and I definitely agree. Skarsgård is a great performer, and it obviously wouldn't be doing his skills justice to force him into Pennywise servitude forevermore just because he did a good job in the role. We didn't do it to Tim Curry, either, so we probably shouldn't do it to him. He made his mark on the character and his portrayal will always be remembered for being a worthy successor to Curry's version — and who knows, maybe one day, perhaps he'll give the Stephen King villain another spin.
That being said, is this turn of events actually a good thing, given that it builds upon the ever-shifting nature of Pennywise's illusive persona? Majorly. After all, that's Pennywise's whole game. The entity is a shape-shifter by nature, and his ability to tap into the specificity of his victims makes him scarier than most. It stands to reason that giving him a whole different physicality in the form of a new actor will only serve that concept further.
The Pennywise That Could've Been
One thing this situation is not, my friends, is a dealbreaker. No, ma'am. There are too many great actors out there we don't know — and ones we do with un-mined Pennywise potential — to rest our hats on BIll Skarsgård entirely. Allow yourselves to take a walk back in time with me to the early 2010s, when recently disgraced "True Detective" director Cary Fukunaga was set to helm the "It" movie adaptations.
In June 2012, Fukunaga signed onto the film, replacing David Kajganich as director. He worked alongside the former directorial head, as well as Chase Palmer, who went on to garner a screenwriting credit for the final 2017 version of the first "It" film. Fast forward to May 2015, nearly a year ahead of when principal photography was set to begin in summer 2016: It was revealed that Will Poulter would take on the role of Pennywise after Fukunaga was reportedly highly impressed by his audition for the villainous clown. And for a blissful 21 days, we lived in a world where Poulter — then a scrappy and extremely promising young actor who had, at the time, made some flashes in "We're The Millers" and "The Maze Runner"— would get a chance to show us just how horrifying he could become. I, personally, was very hopeful.
Alas, before the month drew to a close, Fukunaga had dropped out of the project, allegedly due to budget cuts at New Line Cinemas (although the director has maintained that the separation was more due to compromises in his artistic vision he wasn't willing to make). Poulter stayed attached to the project until April 2016, when it was reported that he had also dropped due to scheduling conflicts. A gutting moment to us perpetual Loser Club members everywhere.
Could The Pennywise That Never Was... Return?
In September 2017, Andy Muschietti, who wound up directing both of the "It" movies, opened up about Will Poulter's departure during an interview with Deadline. Interestingly enough, it had less to do with scheduling conflicts than originally advertised. "Will basically expressed a feeling that he had slowly disengaged from playing that character, that was so dark and terrifying," the director told the outlet. "It was a personal decision I respected, but I was eager and willing to find my own Pennywise, and that's what we did."
This all being said, Poulter has since then dipped his toe into horror in a major way with his role in 2019's Ari Aster sophomore feature "Midsommar." He's definitely excelled in the comedic relief side of horror films, but maybe he's still got the itch to go back and explore the genre in a different, darker way. He didn't actually get to do that with "It" at the end of the day, and whatever preparations he did while attached to the role clearly never came to real fruition — so maybe it remains a goal unfulfilled for him.
All I'm saying is, Will, if you're reading this, consider asking your agent to at least get you the script for "Welcome to Derry," because your Pennywise is a horror white whale at this point. There's something so malevolent about a Poulter-version of this character, and it just goes to show that Pennywise the entity is best served when shifting between faces. Either way, a change of pace is due for the clown .. so let's stay true to this character and get Poulter in there; It's what Derry needs.
"Welcome to Derry" is slated to stream on HBO Max, but has yet to lock down a firm premiere date.
